Back in Costa Rica

We return to Costa Rica in hopes of finding some birds we missed in 2024. We also decided to take a tour of downtown San Jose, to see how the people actually live instead of just the wildlife area. Here are some random notes.

Chris has a packing cube full of packing cubes that one can select from when packing. Mike is assigned blue this trip.

We learned that Costa Rica was named because the Europeans thought there was a lot of gold here so it was the rich coast 

“The coffee probably isn’t very strong here” is unlikely to be true since coffee is grown here

We are staying at the same hotel we stayed at 20 years ago near the airport before our tour starts. I think it was a little prettier 20 years ago but it’s still nice.

So far, we have discovered that Mike has forgotten deodorant, lip balm and his toothbrush. Will update as the trip goes on.

Trip Highlights

The monkey and the crocodile

Mike showed me this photo and asked, what were we doing. I said looking at monkeys. So he called this my monkey face.

This, on the other hand, is my non smiling crocodile face. 

Time to go home.

Last stop: Xandari resort and spa

For our last two nights, we stayed at Xandari.   It’s close to the airport, and rather tranquil with just 24 villas. We got the nature lovers room that overlooks some trees.

The property has some trails and we went for a walk in the morning.

We did see another mot mot, which is on their logo.  The best new bird was the long-tailed manakin, but we only got glimpses in the early morning.

We also saw a white-eared ground sparrow which sounded boring since it’s a sparrow, but had some nice color.

We did find another bird, a golden-crowned warbler which we didn’t try hard to photograph since we were looking for the manakin.

There was a woody woodpecker as well.

After birding, we relaxed a bit and then had some massages at the spa.  Mike’s was wonderful. Chris felt like aliens were probing her body, but now she thinks maybe it was good for her and she’ll feel better tomorrow. With reflexology you can never tell what you will get. Either she will have bruises on the bottom of her feet and need a cart at the airport or will feel like a million bucks.

I’d be safe and ‘cool’ if I was in LA. 🎼🎼 California dreaming’

This nature lovers room has no AC - a big domed ceiling with a fan instead. If you stay away from home long enough, returning looks pretty special. No bugs - at least when we departed our home 😂,  good USA temperature control - safe drinking water - reliable favorite pillows. I wonder how long it will take us to stop getting up at four am for birding.

 

Tourist traps

For the most part, we avoid touristy areas with cheap souvenirs.  However, we’ve had some long drives and our drivers stopped at a few.  One place had good empanadas and was by a river with howler monkeys and iguanas.

The best souvenirs are made in China. Here’s a colorful bird with its bill on the top of the head above the eyes.

We were going to get this for our new grandson Adam, but I’m afraid it would hinder his learning of the natural world.

We found the Agami heron at Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge

We originally planned staying at six places, but at the last minute, Mike decided he wanted to see the Agami heron, which was not at one of those places. It’s a rare bird, quite colorful, with a very long bill.  We went out last night, found a juvenile, but the lighting was terrible for photos. We went out again this morning, Took a boat down a river, and then walked through wetlands, where they are occasionally found. We did only find the juvenile, but the light was better, and Mike was patient  and waited for the bird to walk in his direction.

The juvenile isn’t as colorful as the adults, so we might have to go on another trip to find them. They are in a few other central American countries, so stay tuned.

This was the end of the time that they are usually in Costa Rica, so we were lucky to even find the juvenile.

We saw lots of other birds and things too, but we also have to finish off the rum before we return, so here are some pictures. Will add the description tomorrow.

American Pygmy Kingfisher; smallest kingfisher in Costa Rica.

Boat billed heron again, or as fondly referred to by Chris now, boat Bill Terron.

Grey Headed Tanager. This was a target bird for Chris. A lot of the common tanagers come to the many fruit feeders so our list has grown over the different countries, but Chris likes finding the gems of the forest. We were out with Chambita, a pretty good guide, and Chris saw it fly and land and he helped us identifying it. Always fun to see them with nesting material! Next time Chambita drags a couple birders down this swamp, he might be able to show them a nest.

White wiskered puff bird. This was fun. Chambita heard it and said he knew it had been reported recently but he had not seen it, so it’s always fun when your guide has a good day as well!  We have seen this bird in Panama but, you know, new camera.

Tiger Heron.

Anhinga with the fresh catch of the day sans rice and beans.  One of our drivers made us laugh as we drove he pointed out all the agriculture which included rice fields. Chris said, good thing since a lot of rice is eaten here. He said, yes, for breakfast it’s rice and beans and for dinner it’s beans and rice.

Dusky capped flycatcher.  There was a path we had to walk down alone to meet our driver after getting off the boat with Chambita. We had to pause each time to wait for a cow or horse to clear, so we took a minute to bird and found this one.

We saw this from the boat. There were lots of horses just grazing on the paths around the river. Here we finally saw them being used by actual cowboys rounding up some cattle.



And who can resist “baby cow.”  We will have to look up which type we were seeing with these long drooping ears. They were everywhere and seemed to be keeping track of the coming and going of boats on the river.